


A Dog Named Dragon

by swamp_mouse



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Dog - Freeform, Drama, Humor, M/M, Modern Era, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2011-02-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swamp_mouse/pseuds/swamp_mouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur meets a mysterious young man and instantly feels a bond with the stranger. But he does not know this man was born with powerful gift that he uses to fashion himself as a modern-day super hero "Merlin". This power threatens to destroy the sudden love he has discovered, as well as Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do You Believe in Love at First Sight?

**Author's Note:**

> Although this a chapter story, I try to write each chapter as a small story in itself. I'm a slow writer, but a dogged one that must complete what she starts.

I first met his dog, and I'm still not sure it really was a dog. I had been taking a long walk after a fight with my ex-girlfriend, or perhaps my father --either one could make rattle me so much that I would have to run or walk long and quiet distances to clear my head. I had a special place to wander for this remedy, a vast piece of coast where the river that flowed through the town met the sea. It was a sickly urban river that also took rubbish, trash and once a human body with it, but it was peaceful and I would not come across many people. Admiring the views of distant mansions in the hills, I could walk the paths around little mud puddles of scavenging birds and migrating ducks safe within their tall saffron castles of grass.

I remember that it was cold that day with a gentle marine wind blowing in my face. I had looked back over my shoulder because I had heard something moving. Then I felt the ground beneath me waver. If I had not known for a fact I was far from a African country I would have been convinced I felt an elephant was coming towards me. While I was pondering that perhaps one escaped from the zoo, or that I was experiencing an earthquake or distant bomb attack, a great wave of sound rolled in through the tall reeds in front of me and a beast appeared. Yes, a beast, a half buffalo/half sperm whale creature with paws as big as car tires, or at least they seemed to me at the time, running towards me.  I am going to die, I told myself, my last coherent thought before the certain bloody segmenting of my body into tiny of pieces of limbs and severed eyeballs beyond recognition. A calmness passed through me, a sensation that often carried me past life threatening events before, and I am certain I would have been killed if not for a forceful cry of _“HUT!”_ that caused the half-buffalo beast to freeze in mid-attack so suddenly that its wrinkly skin kept going forward and the spit hanging from its jowls flung like mud into my face.

 _“Dragon!”_ a voice called. _“What has gotten into you?”_

Unbelievable! My arms and eyes were still in place.  I felt I had just faced the firing squad, but somehow the bullets missed me.  My relief soon subsided and by the time its owner arrived I was so angry that my body felt like it was going to implode, or spontaneously combust.  
 _  
“I’m sorry, he-he has never done something like this --unwarranted.”_ The voice had a peculiar lilting quality; it was slightly deep and a little husky.  The sun was behind its source, so I had to squint. Though I could only see a wavy back-lit form I got an impression there was some mystery in that dark figure. It did not deter my anger.

I let out a string of expletives that ended with a coherent _“I’m calling the police on this beast! I’m lucky to be alive!”_ I stopped when I heard a low and threatening growl emanate from my would-be attacker. Only then did I realize the beast was actually the most hideous dog I had ever seen, with scaly skin and a sagging angry face like a week-old jack-o-lantern. Its yellow tortoise-like eyes glared at me in a way that told me that it would allow no harm to come to its master, verbal or otherwise. The dog-beast did not need its size to fight predators, appearance alone frightened a person into submission.  
 _  
“Please don’t, he is a nice dog--”_ His owner stepped partially out of the sun's way and only then could I see a slightly muscular young man, somewhat thin, with anxious look of worry. _“Please, he has had all his shots, and I have him under voice control.”_

I was angry, embarrassed, and relieved. I could only look dumbfounded at this dog-beast owner. He was dressed haphazardly, as if he chose each item form a dollar store without checking for sizes. He was wearing a rain jacket whose pockets bulged with papers and carried over his shoulder a satchel full of books. No one would have called him conventionally attractive but to me he seemed handsome with his pale skin, strong cheekbones, and well-defined lips. The first sudden feelings I had for this man was a kind of homesickness, like an old longing for your ancestral home, the place you've been trying to go back to unknowingly.

The dog-beast owner seemed more bewildered than anything else and he studied me intently, his face turgid; I could not fathom what was thinking. Something soft and fragile emanated from him, rare and alien to this conventional world, that poured cold ice into my anger and I found myself saying _“It is all right then. No harm was done.”_

It was the friendliness in his voice that must have calmed me -- a kind and honest simplicity. Something I hadn't heard from anyone for so long and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. And I seemed to know him already, though, of course, I did not know him from Adam.

My abrupt forgiveness seemed to ease the dog-beast owner's concern and his body noticeably relaxed. He smiled at me, his face turned bright with a light that went right into my breastbone, right into my heart, piercing me hard and fast there. He lifted a tiny green thread from inside his jacket pocket and said  _“I do carry a leash, just in case.”_  
 _  
“That’s a leash? That thing wouldn't hold back a rabbit much less --”_ I waved at the general direction of his dog, not sure if I should even call it a dog.

He made a little laugh, and when he did, dimples formed on his cheeks and a blush spread from his forehead and over his neck and, I imagined, down past his red scarf toward his torso. It gave me the similar sensation of letting a lover lift my shirt to kiss my stomach low, very low.

Do you believe in love at first sight? I never did. I use to believe love was a temporary infliction nature used to get more babies into the world. But now I am sure I fell in love right then.

He took off his knitted cap and clutched it in his hands like he just walked into a church and had to show some respect to me.  His hair was jet black, and he wore it very short in a way that displayed two large but graceful ears. With the sun shining behind them I could see a hint of tiny red capillaries in each lobe.  
 _  
”Thanks for understanding, again I’m so sorry about ..."_ his voice trailed off.

I was utterly hooked, astonished, and partially ashamed of being hooked and astonished. _"Like I said, no harm was done."_ I could only whispered it.

I didn't say anything else, and he gave me a little grin, a slight crinkling of his eyes because he saw that I was still standing there, still waiting and watching and paying attention. He was standing there and I was standing there, neither of us sure what to do now that the drama was over.

Then, clearing my throat, I said, _"Dragon is an appropriate name for it, considering its size."_ I had wanted to say 'considering it was the largest most ugly half-buffalo/half-god-knows-what creature I had ever seen in my life', but something stopped me. No way could say that to his eager face, so young and silly that it made me long, paradoxically, to protect him forever.

 _"Oh no,"_ he chuckled a little once again. _"He got his name from a scar on his chest. See? It looks like a dragon."_ He pointed down to Dragon somewhere, and the beast, I swear, smiled back up at him. This man seemed to exude congeniality from every cell. It affected me quite strongly, and I began to flush with a weird happiness.  I felt that I'd known and loved him before, sometime long ago, and that I should have memories of endless, sensual nights with kisses and caresses over crumpled sheets, a slim body and warm mouth all already known to me.

I was about to say _"I'm a dragon too, a Pen **dragon**_ _,"_ but about half way up the trail there was a little crowd of people coming, and I could hear them laughing, an alien sound against keening of seagulls, the steady slap of waves, and our quiet conversation. The intruders seemed to make him nervous for he mumbled a hasty " _Sorry_ " before turning and walking away down a lesser-used path. Dragon lumbered large and obediently behind him with a great amount of gracefulness, which surprised me considering its ugliness and size.

I was so stunned that I let him walk away, just like that he was leaving me. Oh God help me, it was love right there, right there, a true and proper love. Only I would not admit such absurdity, not then. I could only leave him too.

We both turned our heads back as we walked away: I to view him at a distance and verify what I had seen, and he to look back at the place where I had been standing. I don't remember walking the miles back to my car, or driving home.

 _  
_

  


> _*He had a physical power and a presence that was breathtaking and golden, like the vast fields of rapeseed blooms back home. But he left behind a small dark-blue space in his wake, a deep and rich azure of royalty. I had only seen that color happen once before. No wonder Dragon did not like him.*_

  


 


	2. Merlin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin plots to destroy a company for a very personal reason.

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 **Chapter 2: Merlin**

 _I mailed the package in front of the headquarters of Camelot Insurance Corporation (CIS) setting in motion its implosion. To be rid of all that information was a great relief, as though I had been choking and then Heimlich-ed._

 _I stood still after I had closed the compartment of the mailbox, waiting for some happiness, some epiphany. Was this what accomplishment felt like? A weary kind of numbness? Then I suppose I accomplished what I had sought to do. And so my life continues with my emotions not so different from those I had before. At the center of me was still that bare patch. Nothing would ever grow there again._

 _After months of gathering proof of CIS's defrauding the government and illegal stock option deals, and all those memorandums of bonuses for rescinding covered payments, I was finally done. For a year I had kept so busy around the edges to prove their undoing, edges which were all I had._

_ It was around lunch time, so Dragon and I watched the people stream out of CIS's tall glass building. Men and women in business suits with their little lunch bags smeared long trails of colors behind them like balls of comets. I saw stale browns, mustard yellows, fire blues, blood red and then suddenly hard spears of blackness like swords all combining into whiteness.  _ "Look at the sheep,"  _ I said to Dragon.  _ "White like sheep."  _ He just sighed his agreement with a few thumps of his long tail. _

_Who was I kidding? If life had taught me anything Uther Pendragon, CEO of CIS, would survive this, even after death he'd haunt us with the help of some of a cryogenically preserved brain financed by the death of thousands. I began to feel as if I had become part of a badly written crime novel and my inner critic was taking me to task for being utterly unrealistic character._

 _Just across the street was homeless man in his frayed coats was sifting through the fecund barrels of trash looking for food. Dragon and I trotted up to him to give him money but he just yelled at me about young bastards and skateboards, or something like that, so we turned away from downtown for our long walk._

 _Dragon and I usually head toward the coast because the colors I see that others can't are muted and nice there. The breeze had pushed the tall grasses flat that day. A flower with a hundred tiny blooms on it pushed up everywhere. The rains had loosened the smells of everything. I was comforted by the soft silence, my brain had been too noisy of a place lately._

 _In the back of my mind I tried not to hope to see that golden man again, the one who left behind a royal blue space for a moment. I shut my eyes. I squeezed them tight to just feel the kiss of water on my feet, to dream. I listened to Dragon's panting and the sea stretching in and retreating. But I never thought of him. I never tried to dream of him. I never tried._


	3. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur cannot forget about his brief encounter with this stranger. Meanwhile his father's corporation is under criminal investigation brought about by this stranger.

Chapter 3: The Dream

For the rest of that day, an all the weeks that followed, my mind held onto the memory of our encounter. I had his face memorized and could bring back every detail of those minutes. I could still see his kind, expressive face with all those straight lines, straight protruding cheekbones, and arrow of a nose. I could still smell the grass, how the Dragon's spit felt on my face, and hear the laughter of the people that interrupted us. I thought often of that languid full curve to his bottom lip.

I remember simply wanting to be close to him again, if only for a moment, if only to be friends. I made excuses to take many long walks along that same coastline but I never saw him. And all the time I was spending time with other people, I thought about how his naked body might look in the darkness, I wondered if his sighs and moans would sound like theirs. The more I thought about these things, the hungrier my body grew.

Most of the time these desires could be set aside by my studies and filing my free time with occupations that would at least be temporarily absorbing if they were not fun or useful. I dated many women in a short period of time, had an encounter with one man - all of whom I forgot immediately afterwards. I used to have a knack for simply filing feelings away, letting my memory hide the useless and improbable desires from me. But Dragon's master had a way of recalling himself to me when I least expected or wanted it. His face backdropped by the view of the coast and the yellow reeds returned again and again to me like a symbolic and critical scene in a film I was suppose to heed. He insisted that I not forget him.

That hunger made me dream one night of the sea, but on a different emptier coast and a darker, lonelier sky. I was lying on fur instead of cloth blankets and _he_ was under me. And when he lifted his eyes to mine they were the color of gold, not the dark blue I remembered. The spray of salt from the sea sprinkled and shined like tiny jewels on his eyelids and cheeks. I felt his hand slip into mine and he dragged his lips across my knuckles and kissed the webbing between my fingers. He was deliberately slow, so slow and lazy because he knew this would be our last time together. Only somehow I did not know this, unwilling to wait and with urgency I took his mouth in mine, shivering as the familiar fire roared within me. He tasted of salt - bitter and delectable. I pressed him to the fur, forcing his shoulders down with my hands, my nails digging into his arms. My tongue slid and licked the walls of his mouth as his knees clamped against me. We built and climbed and his head fell back, black hair against brown as his cartilage made ridges along his throat. I was mesmerized at watching him as he dipped back and forth, sweet and intense with his face a perfect mask of pleasure and, sadness? Those eyes, those golden eyes looked like pools of agonizing loneliness. This is the last kiss, the last embrace, the last time he was thinking as I just pressed myself deeper into him, wrapped in my own universe, my own desperate search for warmth. I pushed myself deep, deeper into a pale body outlined against the dark. It felt so good. I loved him so much.

The two of us were so tight together, such a perfect fit that I knew the world was healed because of us, by the strength of our unity, by the power of our destiny. The sea calmed then rose to meet shore near us and under the white of the moon he was everything to me.

A xylophone chimed incongruously in the distance and I sprang upright in bed. It took me a few moments to recognize it as a ring tone, then that the sound was coming from my phone. I reach for the receiver on my dresser and answered with a bewildered "Hello?" There was a few seconds of breathless silence and I wondered crazily for a moment if it was Dragon's master reaching from the past out of my dream to me. But my sister's voice, Morgana, came through the line.

 _"I've left you three voice messages. Have you stopped returning my calls?"_

 _"I don't even get a hello?"_ Nothing kills a hard-on from an erotic dream more than the nagging sound of your sister's voice. _"I was busy with a paper the last few days."_

 _"Well, little brother. Nothing in your business textbooks will properly prepare you for this. We have an business emergency."_ I sighed heavily and readied myself for her usual diatribe. I was all theory and education versus her natural business acumen and ruthlessness. I was too academic, inexperienced, and nice to inherit father's businesses; she was none of these things therefore better suited for it. It was a sibling rivalry our father nurtured to the detriment of our relationship.

 _"What? Break a fake nail and your assistant Gwen isn't around to call the salon for you?"_

 _"This is serious Arthur, you need to come over right now - wait, hold on just a sec."_ I heard her murmuring to someone in the background. It sounded like she was arguing with my father, their voices rose every now and then to a higher pitch. I tried to make out the words from their muffled tones but couldn't. _"Back... just come to the office now. The news broke out that we are under investigation for corporate criminal wrongdoing and for some reason father wants you here."_

 _"What? Criminal? That's absurd."_

I heard a clink of crystal on wood and wondered if she had been drinking too much. My father prided himself in a friendly and ethical corporation, despite its size, so this accusation had to be an exaggeration on her part. Yet her words and voice were perfectly steady, even a little amused when she said, _"Of course we'll prove it isn't true. I just want to find the mole that got this falsified information and pull his nails one by one off."_

She hung up abruptly and there was silence, and distantly, the sound of traffic. Of course these things were common. It would be proven wrong. But why was the news involved? I lay back down on the pillow and tried to gather together the threads of my dream but couldn't. Those images that seemed so real were gone, except for a lingering feeling that there was a warning in it for me somewhere. Then I remembered - I didn't believe in premonitions or metaphysical mumbo jumbo warnings. I had enough of fantasizing about some man I'd never see again. I got up, took some deep breaths, and readied myself to face my father and sister.


	4. The Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur cannot forget about his brief encounter with this stranger. Meanwhile his father's corporation is under criminal investigation brought about by this stranger.

**Summary:** Arthur meets a mysterious young man and instantly feels a bond with the stranger. But he does not know this man was born with powerful gift that he uses to fashion himself as a modern-day super hero "Merlin". This power threatens to destroy the sudden love he has discovered, as well as Merlin. ****

 **A/N:** Although this a chapter story, I try to write each chapter as a small story in itself. I'm a slow writer, but a dogged one that must complete what she starts.

 **Chapter 3: The Dream**

For the rest of that day, an all the weeks that followed, my mind held onto the memory of our encounter. I had his face memorized and could bring back every detail of those minutes. I could still see his kind, expressive face with all those straight lines, straight protruding cheekbones, and arrow of a nose. I could still smell the grass, how the Dragon's spit felt on my face, and hear the laughter of the people that interrupted us. I thought often of that languid full curve to his bottom lip.

I remember simply wanting to be close to him again, if only for a moment, if only to be friends. I made excuses to take many long walks along that same coastline but I never saw him. And all the time I was spending time with other people, I thought about how his naked body might look in the darkness, I wondered if his sighs and moans would sound like theirs. The more I thought about these things, the hungrier my body grew.

Most of the time these desires could be set aside by my studies and filing my free time with occupations that would at least be temporarily absorbing if they were not fun or useful. I dated many women in a short period of time, had an encounter with one man - all of whom I forgot immediately afterwards. I used to have a knack for simply filing feelings away, letting my memory hide the useless and improbable desires from me. But Dragon's master had a way of recalling himself to me when I least expected or wanted it. His face backdropped by the view of the coast and the yellow reeds returned again and again to me like a symbolic and critical scene in a film I was suppose to heed. He insisted that I not forget him.

That hunger made me dream one night of the sea, but on a different emptier coast and a darker, lonelier sky. I was lying on fur instead of cloth blankets and he was under me. And when he lifted his eyes to mine they were the color of gold, not the dark blue I remembered. The spray of salt from the sea sprinkled and shined like tiny jewels on his eyelids and cheeks. I felt his hand slip into mine and he dragged his lips across my knuckles and kissed the webbing between my fingers. He was deliberately slow, so slow and lazy because he knew this would be our last time together. Only somehow I did not know this, unwilling to wait and with urgency I took his mouth in mine, shivering as the familiar fire roared within me. He tasted of salt - bitter and delectable. I pressed him to the fur, forcing his shoulders down with my hands, my nails digging into his arms. My tongue slid and licked the walls of his mouth as his knees clamped against me. We built and climbed and his head fell back, black hair against brown as his cartilage made ridges along his throat. I was mesmerized at watching him as he dipped back and forth, sweet and intense with his face a perfect mask of pleasure and, sadness? Those eyes, those golden eyes looked like pools of agonizing loneliness. This is the last kiss, the last embrace, the last time he was thinking as I just pressed myself deeper into him, wrapped in my own universe, my own desperate search for warmth. I pushed myself deep, deeper into a pale body outlined against the dark.

It felt so good. I loved him so much. The two of us were so tight together, such a perfect fit that I knew the world was healed because of us, by the strength of our unity, by the power of our destiny. The sea calmed then rose to meet shore near us and under the white of the moon he was everything to me.

A xylophone chimed incongruously in the distance and I sprang upright in bed. It took me a few moments to recognize it as a ring tone, then that the sound was coming from my phone. I reach for the receiver on my dresser and answered with a bewildered "Hello?"

There was a few seconds of breathless silence and I wondered crazily for a moment if it was Dragon's master reaching from the past out of my dream to me. But my sister's voice, Morgana, came through the line.

 _"I've left you three voice messages. Have you stopped returning my calls?"_

 _"I don't even get a hello?"_ Nothing kills a hard-on from an erotic dream more than the nagging sound of your sister's voice. _"I was busy with a paper the last few days."_

 _"Well, little brother. Nothing in your business textbooks will properly prepare you for this. We have an business emergency."_

I sighed heavily and readied myself for her usual diatribe. I was all theory and education versus her natural business acumen and ruthlessness. I was too academic, inexperienced, and nice to inherit father's businesses; she was none of these things therefore better suited for it. It was a sibling rivalry our father nurtured to the detriment of our relationship.

 _"What? Break a fake nail and your assistant Gwen isn't around to call the salon for you?"_

 _"This is serious Arthur, you need to come over right now - wait, hold on just a sec._ " I heard her murmuring to someone in the background. It sounded like she was arguing with my father, their voices rose every now and then to a higher pitch. I tried to make out the words from their muffled tones but couldn't. _"Back... just come to the office now. The news broke out that we are under investigation for corporate criminal wrongdoing and for some reason father wants you here."_

 _"What? Criminal? That's absurd."_

I heard a clink of crystal on wood and wondered if she had been drinking too much. My father prided himself in a friendly and ethical corporation, despite its size, so this accusation had to be an exaggeration on her part. Yet her words and voice were perfectly steady, even a little amused when she said, _"Of course we'll prove it isn't true. I just want to find the mole that got this falsified information and pull his nails one by one off."_

She hung up abruptly and there was silence, and distantly, the sound of traffic. Of course these things were common. It would be proven wrong. But why was the news involved?

I lay back down on the pillow and tried to gather together the threads of my dream but couldn't. Those images that seemed so real were gone, except for a lingering feeling that there was a warning in it for me somewhere. Then I remembered - I didn't believe in premonitions or metaphysical mumbo jumbo warnings. I had enough of fantasizing about some man I'd never see again. I got up, took some deep breaths, and readied myself to face my father and sister.


End file.
